


Blood from the Stone

by LogosMinusPity



Series: On the Supplication of Unwilling Penitents [3]
Category: League of Legends
Genre: BDSM, F/F, also riven is hell on earth with she tops, being honest with yourself what is that kat?, my favorite unhealthy ship that I am trying to make healthy apparently
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-22
Updated: 2014-10-22
Packaged: 2018-02-22 05:16:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2495834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LogosMinusPity/pseuds/LogosMinusPity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's grown into too much of a routine, of a comfortable ease, of a thing so easily taken for granted, and Katarina tries to convince herself of it--of Riven--otherwise.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blood from the Stone

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thegadgetfish](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegadgetfish/gifts), [multishep](https://archiveofourown.org/users/multishep/gifts).



> This, as per usual, goes out to TheGadgetFish, as well as FlightShep (I HOPE YOU'RE HAPPY *sobs*). Sorry this took forever and a day, but here you go. I hope you enjoy!

Katarina keeps her arms casually crossed throughout her audience with Swain, throughout her “summons for report”, though it was anything but.

The moment she turns from the now closed door, as imperious and imposing as High Command can manage, it takes all of her meager self control not to spit.  Her mind is abound with a myriad of curses at the so-called Grand General of the Glorious Empire, but nothing to salve the sting of her pride and person.

Her nails, short-cut though they are, dig into her palms hard enough to leave marks; it takes too much effort to unclench them.

All the way back on the long ride to the Institute, his words ring over in her mind, some more choice than others. 

 _Besotted...misguided…_ even _treasonous._

The last makes her utter a short, sharp laugh, hollow for its lack of caring.  Swain’s words have no say in what she chooses; it is her father’s Noxus that she follows, after all, not this skiving, shadowy excuse for a Grand General.  Threats don’t alarm her, and yet the whole of the carriage ride, her mood only sours further.  A kind of quiet and seething fury creeps out, so palpable that the driver doesn’t dare to even call out how many miles are left on the dusty road.

It’s the thought of his implications that eats at her, a gnawing disgust at having so easily handed Swain such petty cards to use at his disposal, to use against her. 

Amateur of Katarina to let any of it go this far, and with _her_ of all people.

And for what?

Though evening is already set when she arrives back at the Institute, there are bodies enough milling about.  Katarina isn’t one to normally care, but a single head of hair stands out in her vision, a dirtied white in a sea of blacks and browns and blondes.

She sees Riven turning her head, knows what’s about to happen, but she can’t seem to move.

Riven’s bright gaze captures hers.  Her scarred and wearied face suddenly seems to brighten, for all that her features remain impassive.  Lips begin to part, one foot moves to step forward and close the distance, to welcome her back and more.

And then Katarina shrugs and turns sharply aside.  Her footsteps are quick and sure as she walks down the hall.  She passes her own rooms, passes the entire residence wing of the Institute and beelines for the closest and seediest tavern she can find.

There is coin enough in her pocket and her knives at her side.  It’s been too long since she’s went out, but a Du Couteau never misses their mark, and Katarina is certain she’ll find entertaining enough company to bring home for tonight...and for many more yet to come.

 

* * *

 

 

Miss Fortune is one of the few that she tolerates to stay, even for a little, even after their proceedings have wound down.

She is deliciously slow in gathering her clothes, and Katarina chooses to watch from the comfort of the sheets as Fortune takes a hearty and terribly crude swig of vintage wine directly from the bottle.

“You do always make sure to keep the highest quality liquor, Kat, darling.  I want to make sure you know that I appreciate it.” Fortune turns back to catch her eyes with a wickedly pleased gaze. “Among other things.”

Katarina snorts and pushes herself up onto her elbows.  She rolls her eyes, but lets the smirk touch her lips as Fortune gives her exposed and displayed body a long one-over.

It’s easy enough to sigh, pleased.  Part of her, a part she hardly even acknowledges now, has been ill at ease as of late.  But this romp has been a large step up from her other, more recent play partners.  Perhaps she’s just been off her usual, old game, or perhaps her choice in bedmates has truly been that lackluster.  Both options are equally disturbing in their own rights, and the worry had been weighing on her...at least until Miss Fortune.  

The woman’s reputation is always said to precede her for a reason.

And it is true.  Gods, she’s forgotten how that swagger Fortune always holds herself with translates into the bedroom.  But Fortune raises an eyebrow back at the smug study, takes a second and even deeper drink, and makes the caricature of a gun between her index finger and thumb.

They are long, elegant fingers, especially for a bounty-hunter. and capable of so, so much more than simply wrapping around the grip of a pistol.  Pleasantly so.

Fortune takes a moment to grab a few more pieces of clothing in her spare hand, and only then does she meander back toward the bed.

“Leaving so soon?” questions Katarina. “Or should I plan for when you are next in town again?”

Her eyes rake across the well-formed stomach that hovers just beyond her reach, and so she misses the brief flicker of surprise across Sarah’s normally masked features.

She _does_ look back up when Fortune responds.

“You know me better than that, Katarina.  My mistress is the sea, and she is ever calling.”

Of course she knows that, but there’s still an oddly sinking sense of disappointment, one that seems to have little to do with the woman in front of her.

The thought is shoved away when the bounty-hunter chooses tosit on the edge of the mattress.  For a moment, her glistening red lips twist, as if in distastefully pensive thought, and then she finally speaks.

“Kat, while I am scarcely going to complain about the chance to... _visit_...with you again after so long—and I think I can hazard a fair guess that you were by no means bored—I’m just not entirely sure this was quite your mark this time around.”

Katarina is sitting upright in a second, an angry retort bubbling up from her throat at the insinuation.  How _dare_ Fortune intimate—

“Easy, Kitty Kat, I didn’t mean to insult you.”

Fortune presses the top of the bottle to Katarina’s lips, urging her to drink rather than speak.  She accepts begrudgingly, the subtle flavors barely registered.  As Kat sips, her bedmate continues, pulling on more layers of clothes while speaking.

“I know it’s always bound to be a fun night with you, Kat, and I’m not about to say no when an opportunity like today presents itself, but…”

“But what?” snaps Katarina, and if she sounds defensive, she doesn’t care. 

Fortune, however, is slow to continue.  She looks away, with the same gaze in her eyes as if she were back on the seas, commanding her ship where to next sail.  What she says next is as carefully measured and weighed as any amount of gold coin to pass the seafarer's hands.

“Seems like you were spending quite a lot of time with that ex-Noxian wanderer, as I recall.  What was the name of her again?  Riven, right?”

Katarina doesn’t believe for a moment that Fortune has any difficulty recalling Riven’s name.  She knows from experience that the bounty hunter has a memory even sharper than her shot, a necessary talent for someone of her profession.  It’s been easily a fortnight since she last saw Riven, longer still since when they had last talked, last been close enough to...

“Watch carefully where you choose to tread, Fortune,” warns Katarina.  Her voice comes out low and soft, only the barest hint of a hiss at the end, and she stares above the wine bottle unblinking. “You are not captain here, and this is not your ship.”

Sarah spits out her vexation at that, practically throwing her hands up.

“Let me say my piece, Kat!  Western winds but I forgot how feisty you get!” There is a mumbled bit of well-natured grumbling for a long second. “I don’t mean anything by it, and you know that I’m the last of any to tell you what to do.  You captain your own ship, no differently than mine, but why change your course for no reason?  A month ago you were hardly seen entering or leaving your bedroom chambers without that mop of white hair by your side.  Then you get recalled to Noxus for a week and come back to just—” 

“Leave it be.”

But she won’t be quelled so easily.

“Look, Kat,” presses Fortune.  It’s a rarity for Sarah to ever grow so serious as this in the bedroom, and perhaps the uncharacteristic push is what makes Katarina pause and hold at the interruption. “All I’m saying is, since when have you ever given a shit about Swain or anyone else telling you how you live your life?  Or has that changed while I’ve been away?  Or are you really that afra—”

“Leave it be, Fortune,” repeats Katarina, but try though she might,there’s no venom in it this time.  Even to her own ears, her voice sounds tired, flat.  She refuses to acknowledge it as being beaten.

For her part, Sarah waits, and then flourishes a bow.  It isn’t meant to be mocking or disrespectful; it is simply Fortune being herself.  When she straightens, she shakes her head a bit, a perfunctory smile on her still-swollen lips. “As you wish, Kat.”

She fixes that absolutely preposterous hat atop her head again, and then nods once.

“Anyway, you know how to get in touch if you’re interested in another...meeting.  I do as always, and follow wherever the tides take me.” 

Sarah tips her hat once, and then leaves.

And when the door closes behind her, Katarina is left with only the discomforting quiet of her own thoughts.

 

* * *

 

 

It seems as though it’s yet another of many long evenings to be spent in contemplative, uneasy silence with herself.

Not for the first time, Kat wants to curse at Fortune, at Swain, at the Exile, too.  The wine on her table remains untouched and she fights the urge to toss it across the room, to shatter the contents across the floor like freshly spilled blood.

But it wouldn’t do any good.  It’s not real blood, and her vexation runs deeper.  It curls around her annoyance with every last play partner she’s brought back, with the isolation she has begun to content herself with, with every last phantom glance of white that jumps in the corner of her vision.  It plagues her in the way she avoids the Institute training rooms and far residential wings alike.

Katarina crosses her legs, then uncrosses them again.

The night is still young, yet she sneers at the thought of _doing_ anything with it.  Her fingers toy along the stem of her empty wine glass, but she does nothing...until three sharp knocks upon her door disturb her pensive reverie.

Surprise strikes her upon opening it, but she buries it with vicious efficiency.

“Exile,” she begins, and her voice is all perfect indignation and cold indifference, as she has trained it to be. “I did not send summons for you to—”

Riven throws the door open the rest of the way, ripping it easily from Katarina’s hands, but ensuring it doesn’t slam against the unsuspecting wall.  It is an odd mixture of force and restraint, and so decidedly _Riven_.

If only her face could be read with such ease.

“Katarina.”

Her voice is taut with fraying control, and Katarina drinks it in, nearly closes her eyes to better focus on it.  There’s pain yes, but oh how there’s anger beneath all of that precious, frail restraint.

“We need to talk.”

Her drawl is automatic, cutting. “Do we really?  You in particular don’t seem to be in quite the right mood for talking.”

The guttural curse that rips out of Riven’s throat practically singes the air, and Katarina lets venom drip into her words, savoring how it burns within her own chest.

“See?  My point exactly.” She feigns a yawn. “Besides, I don’t think I’m up for talking, either.”

Riven is clearly not about to accept the meager answer, and while she doesn’t talk, she draws her chest up.  Katarina’s eyes flicker down her tunic-covered front before she can stop herself.

“We need to talk.  You owe me that much.  You _owe_ me.”

“Oh?” Kat taunts, unable to help but goad on the reaction that she knows her words will provoke. “Then why don’t you make me.”

Long white eyelashes flicker for a moment, and when Riven speaks her voice is unusually silky, low, and forceful.  It teeters on a thin precipice of control.

“Is that an invitation?”

Now, no different to before, Katarina is hardly one to even think of holding herself back.  It’s counter to her very identity.  The past months of silence and avoidance melt away in an instant, and there is only what she wants, standing right in front of her.

And Katarina takes what she wants.

Her cruel smile says everything that she needs it too.

“Ha...if you can actually manage it.”

Her flat laugh is all it takes to push Riven, and then that precarious control across the room evaporates.

Riven lunges, but Katarina is so, so ready, and nothing can come easy.

There are no weapons drawn, no fists thrown or kicks launched, yet it’s a fight nonetheless.  In an instant Kat feels her adrenaline spike alongside her heart rate.  They grapple and vie for something beyond winning, something Kat is certain she’ll come out on top of, here in her own lair.

Her feet are abruptly clipped from under her, though—it’s a dirty, cheap, street move, not the kind of trained martial force she expects from a former soldier, and she’s falling before she can think to adjust, directly onto the soft whisper of sheets and mattress.  There’s no chance to counter.

Riven is on top of her, eyes flaring with hot, sickening, liquid wrath, and it sends a delicious thrill right through her core.

Her wrists are slammed back above her head, thighs pinned down by a pair densely muscled legs.

She knows—how she _knows_ —that Riven is hopelessly stronger than her.  Even so, when the cunning lengths of Ionian silk are pulled from the headboard and looped around her wrists, Katarina thrashes against it, snarling vicious protests all the while.

They’ve struggled like this before, both vying for the upper hand against one another, for the victor’s writing of history.

Yet this time, Riven stops immediately.

“Say no, if that’s what you want, Kat.” Her eyes seem to flame beneath the surface, intense and unrelenting, and incredibly certain in what she speaks. “Say it now.  Tell me to leave and never bother you again, and I _never_ will.”

That, Katarina has no doubt of it.  The burning in Riven’s eyes says it all.  It’s a force of will.  The woman has never made idle promises, has never backed down on her word.  If Katarina says the words now, if she tells Riven to stop and to leave, she will.  And that will be the end of it.  There will be nothing further between them, no touch beyond that of the blade on the Fields of Justice.

A hollow kind of cold creeps against the steady heat in her core.

Katarina’s lips go suddenly and acutely dry, and the words that seem so well rehearsed abruptly die on her tongue.  She swallows, and it sounds loud to her own ears.

Riven waits above her, patient even now, and what Katarina utters is hardly what she intended, but is nonetheless the truth.

“Stay.”

Riven’s statuesque features are a far cry from expressive, but something in the woman seems to relax...and then snap back into tight and unshakeable focus.

The length of rope tightens around Katarina’s wrists, and her ankles are soon to follow.  In a the space of a minute she’s almost professionally tied down, and the experimental tug she gives on the restraints isn’t needed to tell her what she already knows: that she is firmly and inescapably captured.

She’s still fully clothed, yet before she can even think to tease about that particular shortcoming, Riven is already proffering a solution.

From Katarina’s own thigh strap, she draws a sharp and wickedly gleaming dagger.  Her fingers tap against the fabric-bound hilt, and she palms the weapon cautiously, but firmly.  Then she brings the blade to heel against Katarina’s clothes.

There’s no artistry in it, not like how Katarina handles a knife around her bedmates; she knows every last edge and point of her knives, makes cutting with them a work of art in its own right.  But with Riven there is no such honed skill or pretense.  She goes to work with all the practicality of a hunter over their prize, slicing methodically through the layers of tight leather, neither too fast nor too slow.

Strips of ruined clothing are pulled off, clothing that was custom tailored to her figure and profession alike, at which point Katarina begins voicing her protest.  Nevermind that she has countless others and can buy more in a heartbeat.

“Riven!”

It is most certainly _not_ an undignified shriek that leaves her mouth.

That earns her a sharp glare, yet the knife is set aside in favor of gripping and grasping at the waistline of Katarina’s pants.

If she had thought the weapon was truly going to be abandoned, Kat suddenly realizes that severity of her misjudgement. The hands at her waist finish their fumbling and move upward, a new trophy in hand and nudging toward Katarina’s disbelieving mouth.

A moment is all it takes for her to put two and two together.

Her belt.  Her leather belt.  As a gag.

When her eyes dart, almost fearfully, back up to Riven’s face, there is not even the faintest hint of jest, only of terrifyingly earnest and simplistic sincerity.

“If you can’t be well mannered, then there will be consequences.”

The words are said as a matter of fact, like a recitation from a book rather than a threat, and it makes the impact of them all the more jolting.

Katarina has all but a second to register the way her entire body shivers at the bold promise, and then Riven is roughly prying her jaw open with one set of fingers, and then putting the strip of leather between her teeth with the other.

The material of the belt pushes against her tongue and the corners of her lips, keeping her jaw opened and wide even as the makeshift gag is tied firmly at the back of her head.

Once finished, Riven nods with her chin toward Katarina’s hands, where they are remain immobilized along the headboard...still loose enough to form fists.  Loose enough to knock against the thick wood if she so wishes.

She understands the implication immediately, the suggestion of what their longstanding safety has been.  She need but knock and Riven will stop, will immediately free her bonds no differently than if she was able to utter “no”.  

Her hands automatically clench into fists and strain for a moment, but then she looks back into Riven’s piercing eyes and nods, slowly and forcefully relaxing her fingers.

Riven waits another few long seconds, as if gauging Kat’s certainty in the matter.  Then she leans in and places a quick kiss on her brow, seemingly ignoring the way that Katarina steams and glares back up at her.

“Good.”

Without another moment’s pause, Riven picks up the knife from where it was deposited on the sheets, and promptly resumes her work.  Her touch is nearly impersonal in its quiet progress, and not once while cutting and peeling away the layers of top quality leather is Katarina even nicked.

Then it’s finished.  The knife clatters onto the floor with a careless toss, where the tattered remnants of once perfectly tailored clothing soon follow.

Riven sits back and towers over her, and for an odd and titillating moment, Katarina closes her eyes and tries to fight off the blush that rises in her cheeks.  This is hardly the first time she has been on display for another’s eyes, either naked or clothed, and certainly not the first time for Riven.  It is, in fact, an effect that she often deliberately tries to provoke.  It’s disconcerting to feel so unnerved now but that quiet and measuring stare.  It unsettles her to feel so terribly vulnerable.

Riven even has the gall to put one hand under her chin and tilt Kat’s head up, like a prize for inspection.

Katarina tightens her hands back into fists, wanting nothing so much as to be free, and yet she stays in place, forcing her gaze evenly upward.

The unexpected smirk that breaks through Riven’s stoic façade makes Kat’s pulse jump into roaring life, at odds with the chill of shivers that run in waves across her skin.

Riven doesn’t begin with the same furor shown at the door, though. 

She begins softly, and Katarina breath catches in her throat.

Hands ghost over her breasts, down her sides, moving between her legs, only to drag across her thighs and knees...and to then repeat the same tortuous process upward before beginning it all over again.  It’s a process of nearly unbearable tender ministrations.

Yet slowly but surely, the tempo increases.  That same frenetic energy from earlier starts to bleed out from Riven, like water trickling from a cracking reservoir.  It’s in in the scraping of her nails, in the nipping of her teeth against skin.  It’s in the way how when Katarina arches her back and moans, the response is harder, faster, rougher.

Her touch is everywhere.  Everywhere _except_ for exactly where Kat wants her the most...needs her the most.

She rolls her hips upward as best as she can manage.  Speaking is pointless, as her words will come out garbled at best, but the not-so-subtle gyrations of her pelvis should redirect Riven’s attention precisely where toward they should be.

The effect, however, is not quite as intended.

In an instant, hands grip her hips and slam her back into the bed with severe and correctional force.

“Stop that.” Though said mildly, at mild compared to the brute action, the command still cuts through the air, and Katarina immediately stills.  Her heart thrums in her chest, and she knows without doubt that to disobey the quietly explicit commands will bear repercussions.  Very definitive ones.

“ _I_ will take my time.  And _you_ are expected to wait...and watch.”

 _Fuck_ , but those demands and everything that goes unsaid behind them makes her shudder.

“Understood?”

Katarina manages one short, perfunctory nod—nearly more of a head jerk—but it’s enough.

“There.” She sounds all too damnably _amused_ about something, and Katarina tilts her head forward again to find Riven’s face.

The slightest of smug smiles tugs her lips upward, as loud on her as vicious grin of victory on anyone else.  Why she is so pleased—

Kat whimpers into the leather when a hand returns to one nipple, a thumb rolling over the sensitized skin before giving a sudden and rough twist.

The resulting yelp is muffled by leather, but the slow and sensual chuckle from Riven reaches Kat’s ears as clear as day,

“There.” She repeats herself. “It’s not so hard to be a good girl, is it?”

Even without that tiny drop of condescension, Kat would still bristle.  As it stands, she immediately jerks against each and every last one of the restraints, snarling as best as she can around the gag, and wanting nothing more than to be able to reverse positions.

The thoughts are struck clean from her mind as Riven finally— _finally_ —reaches down between her splayed legs and pushes the pads of her fingertips to the slick heat there.

The back of Katarina’s head rockets into the mattress, and she sucks in a fresh breath when those same fingers rub very, very slowly.

“See?  Isn’t it—” Riven punctuates her words by increasing the pressure, drawing circles against Katarina’s clit that make her gasp. “—easier like this?”

She’s biting into the leather hard enough to make her jaw ache.  Better that than to choke out another response, another potential consequence...not when she is getting close, so damned close so quickly.  If only she can just push her hips a bit further into that touch, then she can—

In the space of a heartbeat, Riven pulls her hand away and pushes off the bed, standing.  Her face is turned away while she wipes clean her hand on the sheets, but Katarina catches the tug of a smile on the Exile’s lips when their gazes reconnect.

Then Riven takes a further, ponderous step away.

She gapes, caught in complete and utter disbelief.  Is she actually...is Riven seriously…?

“I need to shower,” she states calmly, looking utterly unaffected...perhaps ponderous, if anything. 

Nevermind that Kat is naked and splayed on the bed, that Riven has deliberately pushed and teased her right to the edge of her climax, only to now stop and deny her even that.

What sound is emitted from her throat, is distorted and muffled by the leather, Katarina cannot begin to guess—only that it does not even begin to express her incredulity.

Riven stops for a second, though, and returns to the bedside.

For one long moment Katarina feels nothing but blinding desperation and need.  What little hope she has built quickly crumbles when Riven pats the string of belt that wraps across her cheek. 

A thumb runs across her cheek bone and the sharply raised skin of her scar.  Katarina closes her eyes to it.  All she has in her now is the proud desire to remain as indifferent and unfeeling as she can.

And Riven sees right through it

“Be a good girl, Kat.”

Against her desire to remain impassively still, Katarina twists and moans when Riven presses a slow and hard stroke between her legs.  Her hips instinctively try to buck into it, but the touch pulls away as soon as she does.

Riven brings her fingers up, glistening and wet, clear evidence of what Katarina already knows.  She can only glare with her rising fury as the words continue.

“Stay hot for me while I’m gone.”

Then she pushed away, walking toward the door that leads to Katarina’s luxurious suite of a bathroom.

Nevermind the gag, Katarina does what first comes to mind and yells, demands that Riven return.  Riven doesn’t even bother to turn around at the unintelligible noises.  The bathroom door closes with a very final thud.

Not that it sates her wrath.

Katarina renews her struggle against the bindings ten-fold, thrashing and yelling and struggling as much as she can, if only to vent her fury.  But she knows as well as Riven that she is well and truly stuck.

After a minute she gives up, particularly when the whir of water running through the pipes begins.  Her wrists and ankles alike ache from the pointless contest, and her throat scratches when she swallows.

Her chest heaves once, and she is all too acutely aware of how, despite everything, she is powerless.

Saliva collects at the corners of her mouth, and she gulps it back furiously.

As she thinks, she twists her wrists experimentally, almost idly.

Riven’s done a professional job in ensuring not only are the bonds perfectly secure, but also that there isn’t a single knife—obvious or hidden—even remotely close for Katarina to use.

If she can just loosen a leg enough…

Her thoughts, wherever they’re going, stop short as soon as the twisting of her legs causes a spike of heat to shoot through her groin.

When she blinks her vision clear again, she hisses.  Or she would if she were able.

It’s impossible.

Her ankles are tied to far apart for her to even begin bringing her thighs together, and even the simple breeze of air on her bared skin is nearly too much.  All she can do is lie there.  Wait.

Seconds tick by at a snail’s pace.  Her breathing seems to echo in the room, louder than the whistling of the hot spring-fed pipes.  Her heart still pounds all too prominently, and she can feel the sweat that beads up and trickles down between her breasts as much as she can feel the steady and uncompromising throb of her sex.

But there is no release; patience has never been a prized virtue of hers, and she’s certain time is crawling.  How long of a shower can the woman take?  Riven has never been one to spoil herself in excess, but she has a sinking feeling that this may be an occasion for exceptions.

It’s both incredibly pleasurable and frustrating.

Katarina is just coaxing her thoughts elsewhere when the bathroom door finally opens.  Steam and heat billow outward, and a moment later Riven follows, entering the bedroom again.

She’s wearing Katarina’s robe, a thin slip of jet black silk kept closed witha loosely tied belt.  Even from the distance that still separates them, she can clearly see the press of Riven’s nipples against the dark fabric, the silent indication that she is undoubtedly nude beneath the scant excuse for clothing, smelling like the very shampoos and soaps Katarina uses herself.

A sharp ache readily flares back into life between her legs, and Katarina feels caught between her desire to throttle the life from Riven or to pin her down and rip the silk from her skin.

Neither, unfortunately, is possible, and she instead if forced to wait, the familiar heat of both anger and desire warming her blood all over again.

Riven, however, continues about her business, taking the time to fold and deposit her sweaty tunic and clothes on a chair, to comb her fingers through her wet and tangled mat of hair.

She could try to shout again, but Katarina knows it is a pointless effort; it got her nowhere before, and it will do nothing now.  So instead she bides her time, waiting.  Far from a favorite past time, but surely Riven will have to…

Finally— _finally_ —she brings her thrice-damned attention back to the bed.  Back to Katarina.

Kat’s nostrils flare under the scrutiny, a mix of indignant arousal paralyzed with sheer want.  She forces another awkward swallow past the barrier of the gag.  When Riven approaches the bed, her steps hold the rare and predatory grace that is usually only glimpsed upon the battlefields.

The bed dips slightly under the new weight.

One hand drops to her face, and there’s the fleeting touch of calloused fingers to her skin as the errant locks of hair are pushed back from her forehead.

The touch is gone as quickly as it comes, and she is left with Riven sitting over her, with her full attention, but Riven remains still and watching.  The only touch Kat knows is the press of Riven’s knees to the inside contour of her legs..

Impatience gnaws at Katarina all over again, yet she knows—how she knows so well by now—that the restraints are unyielding, too well knotted for her to do anything but wait.  Riven remains in control.

So Katarina grits her teeth against the strip of leather, glaring into the tanned face above her.  She isn’t going to give the woman the satisfaction of hearing her muffled sounds of impotent rage all over again.  In a quiet response back, Riven’s lips twitch ever so slightly upward.

It makes her fume.

It makes Riven smile more widely.  Yet the curve of her lips fades back into a stern line quickly enough.

“Are you going to be good?”

Katarina weighs the question for a long few moments, the genuine query within it, and what happens next, she realizes, is now dependent on her.

Still, it takes effort to force the tension from her limbs, to give a curt nod of _acquiescence_.

When Riven reaches forward, her hands are firm but gentle, and it only takes a moment before her prior handiwork is undone and the belt is removed.  Katarina swallows heavily in its absence, trying to readjust to the dull soreness in her jaw before wetting her throat for words.

Time isn’t a luxury she’s afforded, though, not when Riven’s hand is already back against her cheek, tracing lines across her jaw and flush of bone, moving delicately over her the curve of a lower lip.

Nothing needs to be said.

Katarina takes Riven’s index finger into her mouth. A debate on whether to bite down and give a small, petty measure of payback briefly wars within her head, but she thinks better of it.  Instead she swirls her tongue around the digit, tasting and caressing.  It’s exactly what Riven wants, if the heavy-lidded heat in her gaze means anything.  She repeats the process when another finger pushes at her lips, this time nipping down and grazing her teeth along the skin.

A mix between a breathy exhalation and a growl of approval rumbles above her, and when Riven withdraws her hand, almost regretfully, for the first time in too long Kat smirks back.

 _That_ earns her a sigh, but there’s no immediate punishment.

No, instead Riven sits fully upright, and places her palms onto the thin fabric of her robe.  She undoes the silk belt gradually, methodically.  Katarina watches, enraptured as the expensive material slides from dusty skin like water.  It pools down to her calves, brushing briefly against Katarina’s own thighs, before being cast from the bed.

Her eyes inadvertently trace their way back up Riven’s fully exposed body.  They run from her toned legs up across the smooth board of her abs, to the generous curve of her breasts and across the tempting jut of her collarbone.  The landscape of her arms, her torso, her back...every last inch of it is still imprinted in her mind, and now called to the forefront of her thoughts.  Katarina feels her pulse pound within her chest when her vision jumps back down to the junction of Riven’s thighs, and when she finally looks back up, it is to a set of autumnal eyes studying her back.

There’s no hint of a blush on her tanned cheeks, no knowing smile on her thin lips.  Whatever thoughts might be lurking behind her cool visage are veiled to Katarina, and it unnerves her more than she cares to admit.

Then Riven lowers herself.  It’s tantalizingly slow, until the tips of her dark nipples brush just the barest hint against Katarina’s breasts, sending a wave of shivers across her skin.  She hovers there, deliberately refusing to allow any further contact between them.  Maddening.

Just as Katarina opens her mouth to forcefully break the silence, Riven speaks.  Her voice is low and soft, and floats easily across the air

“These are my conditions, final and non-negotiable.  If you can’t agree with them, then I leave.  That’s that.  Okay?”

Katarina begins to nod, but Riven catches her jaw with an iron hand, and her gaze with those bloodied eyes.

“ _Okay_?”

Katarina swallows and wets her lips for a moment, clenching her teeth against the grip that holds her fast. “Yes.  What are they?”

The fingers release her face, run down her front, teasing over her breasts.

“One,” starts Riven.  Her lips tickle against an ear, and Katarina gasps when the woman’s other hand reaches easily and confidently between her legs, rubbing small but sure circles there, as if there had been no pause since when she left to bathe. “No up and leaving without warning.  If you’re done then you’re done, and you tell me.  Don’t just suddenly cut off and away like a coward.”

Katarina’s eyes snap open wide.

“I am _not_ a cowa—”

“That’s one.”

Her words are punctuated by long and hard strokes that already have Katarina’s hips shaking.

Too long, it takes too long to form words already, but she manages.

“I...yes.  Yes, alright?”

“Mmm, good...now two.” Riven pauses only to bite at the curve of Katarina’s ear.  The hand against her clit increases it’s pace, and her legs twitch and pull against the restraints.  Fingers pinch a nipple hard, and Katarina yelps, back arching into it. “You acknowledge just what we are.  No more deliberately hiding the fact.”

Riven’s face comes into view, her brow drawn and intent, brooking no arguments.

“You know what I mean, Kat.”

One finger pushes boldly into her entrance, and she strains into it, groaning.  Riven starts slow, a teasing pace that lacks either pattern or rhythm, purposefully at odds with how damned ready Katarina is for more.

Another finger joins, and Katarina feels the brush of words exhaled against her ear.

“Well?  What do you want?”

 _More_.

But that’s not the answer to the question being asked.

The first syllables to spill from her mouth are hissed curses, bitten back when her teeth snag on her lip.  She answers.

“Yes, already!”

The tempo of thrusts and rubbing alike slow down, and Riven is close enough to nearly touch noses. “You’re sure?”

Annoyance flashes briefly through Katarina.  Of _course_ she’s certain.  She’s never done things by halves, and if she says yes, then she clearly means it.

Something of her irritation shows through, for when she opens her mouth to angrily retort Riven covers it with her own.  Her lips and tongue are warm and eager, and for the first time since her door was practically thrown off its hinges, Katarina can taste something of the same desperation mirrored in Riven that she feels so acutely within herself.

Katarina isn’t sure who breaks from the kiss, isn’t sure if it’s become so difficult to focus her thoughts and lips alike what with the rising pleasure that flushes through her limbs, or if it’s from some impressive modicum of control that Riven is still— _still_ —able to hold on to.

There’s no time to consider either.

Riven’s throat moves as she swallows, and then she finally speaks.

“Three.  It’s you and me.  And _just_ you and me.”

“Just…” It’s hard for Kat to catch her breath, to see straight, let alone form a response. “Just you and me?”

She can see the way Riven nods well enough, and the way that one eyebrow quirks up.

“Just you and me...” She pauses for a moment, clearly thinking. “With any other arrangements involving _both_ of us.”

“ _Commitment_ ” is the unspoken implication.  Commitment between her and Riven...with no more fooling around, no more of her momentary fancies for any other occupants for her bed.  Can she do that? 

Isn’t that what she’d been doing—without a second thought—for so long?

Mired in her own swirling thoughts, Katarina is heedless of the lengthening quiet...until Riven heaves a sigh above her.  It’s heavy, filled with weighted regrets, and her eyes look shadowed and beaten and _old_.

She’s heedless until that small, living furnace of a body begins to pull away, and then all semblance of thought and planning flee her mind.

“Don’t!” Katarina chokes out the panicked response.  She jerks forward, but the ropes snap taut and keep her stuck, stranded.

Yet even so powerless, her words still have an effect.  Riven stops and waits, and Katarina finds herself pinned not by physical restraints, but by a deeply searching gaze that will no longer go without answers.

“I…” Her voice is a breathy whimper, even to her own ears.  She should hate how vulnerable it sounds, but all she can focus on is the woman hovering over her, on the words that spill from her lips. “I _need you_.”

It’s more than the simple physical need, for all that it nearly overwhelms her senses.  She needs _Riven_.  Damn whatever smartass comments might be made to her later, if she has to open her mouth now to admit what the Riven needs to hear, then so be it.

Katarina is only beginning to form the next set of words and then Riven is on her, closing the distance in a flash until it is only skin against skin.

She isn’t sure just when Riven’s lips found hers again, when her fingers replaced against her sex moving _just so_ , but it doesn’t matter; nothing matters except that Riven is here, that she isn’t going anywhere...and for one moment, surrendering to that notion is a graceful oblivion.

The fingers that card in her hair, tugging, are almost gentle.

“Come for me, Kat.”

Her blood singes at the order, and her thighs tighten in response.  Her back arches.

“ _Come_.”

All that Katarina knows are spots of flashing white, shaking tremors that run across her spine and dance along her bones.

When the lights fade, she finds herself exhausted, but it hardly bothers her.  The whole of her body is enveloped in a warm and ethereal fuzz, a sense of satiated completion that has evaded her for too many fortnights, and she accepts it without the faintest hint of resistance. 

Katarina becomes gradually cognizant that she is no longer bound, that Riven has undone the restraints on her ankles, is undoing the ones on her wrists. 

The moment she is fully freed, she moves.  Her hands don’t reach for any of her hidden nearby daggers, though.  They stretch out, throwing themselves around Riven’s neck and artlessly pulling her down, finally and fully closing the physical distance between them.

“R-Riven…” Her voice cracks at the end, worn and still uncharacteristically needy, yet she finds she doesn’t care.  Not anymore.

A set of strong, muscled arms wrap back around her, gladly anchor her in place, and a pair of lips—only _slightly_ dry and chapped—press gently to her temple.

For a long while, they lie there, until Katarina’s breathing slows and she can feel mirroring beats of both of their pulses.

She shifts then, re-angles their sweaty and entwined limbs so that they are lying side by side, and stretches her legs fully.  Her toes run down one sculpted calf of the warrior next to her, tracing the contours of muscle and tendon.  Even down the length of those legs there are scars...scars enough to outdo one of the Rakkor.

“Riven.”

The woman’s eyes remain closed, and a small smile of pure contentment plays on her lips even as Katarina dances her fingertips across the Melter-ruined tattoo on the soldier’s back.  That’s a rarity; usually she’s so, _so_ sensitive with her backside.

Perhaps she should be reminded as much.

“ _Riven_.”

Kat sounds much more like her usual self now, sinister and darkly promising of  things yet to come, things her mind is already beginning to concoct.

Riven finally cracks one eye open, looking up. “Hmmm?”

“A belt.” It is more of a flat demand than a question.  She grabs the offending object that recently spent time as a makeshift gag. “ _My_ belt.  That you used... _on me_.”

“ _Oh_.  Right.”

She at least has the sense to look somewhat sheepish about it, though that’s hardly about to earn her any mercy.

“On your stomach,” orders Katarina.  No need to say it, though; she’s already pushing Riven into the sheets before the words have fully left her mouth.

Riven readily complies beneath her touch, cheek pressing into the cream sheets and one eye looking boldly back up at her, waiting.

Katarina chooses not to move immediately.  Her gaze glances up at the free hands and wrists, down at the equally liberated feet and ankles.  She looks back up at the wide expanse of scarred but well-muscled back.  Heat sparks in her chest, floods through her veins.

She folds the belt over itself, slaps it down between the prominent jut of Riven’s shoulder blades.  It’s a soft touch, but Riven still jerks into the mattress, and a choked sound catches in her throat as Katarina begins to drag one leather edge down the length of her spine.

A comfortable smirk settles onto Katarina’s face as she takes mental stock of how close her other belts are to the bed.  The way Riven’s already knotting her fingers urges her on.

So she ducks her head close to Riven’s. 

Her voice is barely a whisper, confidently vicious and utterly at ease, in control.

“I think...I have some better uses for my belts.”


End file.
